the bartered bride
by cherryblossum123
Summary: Draco Malfoy is a ruthless financier in the muggle world used to buying and selling stocks, But now Draco has his eye on a very different acquisition- Hermione Granger.Left destitute by her father's recent death, Hermione walks into Draco's bank looking to extend her overdraft. As hermione needs money plus Draco needs a wife equals a marriage of convenience
1. Chapter 1

Hermione couldn't believe who she was going to a meeting with, her enemy Draco Malfoy. Malfoy was working as a bank manger in a muggle world. She worked up to the office and he opens the door to her

"Come in, Miss Granger" he said. To Hermione, until very recently, money had been something she spent with careless extravagance on clothes for herself, presents for others and anything else she wanted. Now the supply had dried up. That why she was here in the formidable presence of this well-built six-footer whose physique didn't match the boy who had tormented her during her years at Hogwarts.

Mr. Preston her late father's lawyer, had said that Draco Malfoy wished to see her and might be able to help her and her mother out of the predicament. The first thing Hermione had said was at what cost did that snake need to help her.

Besides that predicament being the understatement of the year, Hermione thought wryly, leaning back in the comfortable leather chair and automatically crossing her legs, remembering a moment too late that this was a no-no in the books of advice on how to impress interviewers.

The movement caused Malfoy to shift the focus of his cold grey gaze from her face to her shapely knees and then to slender ankles.

Hermione was accustomed to men admiring her legs furtively or openly according to temperament but Draco Malfoy was one that didn't have the pleasure.

"You're in trouble" he said with that cocky grin he had since god knows when.

"Presumably you didn't ask me here to tell me what I already know," she replied.

"so why did you invite me here?"


	2. Chapter 2

'I invited you here because of this' he said as he rose. Picking up a file that was lying on top of his desk, he walked around to hand it to her. 'Have a look through that.' He strolled away to a window looking out on a vista of rooftops. He stood with his hands behind him, the right hand clasping his left wrist.

The file held plastic pockets containing illustrations taken from magazines and the glossier kind of catalogue. Mostly they showed pieces of sculpture, paintings and other _objets d'art._ There were also several photographs of horses, an aerial view of an island off Scotland and a picture of a small French château.

Half turning from the window, he said, 'They're all things that caught my eye over the last few years. Some of them are now mine. I'm in the fortunate position of being able to indulge my acquisitive impulses… as I expect you did before your father died.'

'Not on this scale,' said Hermione. She couldn't see where this was leading.

As she glanced enquiringly at him, Draco Malfoy returned to his desk, resting one long hard thigh along the edge of its polished surface and folding his arm across his chest.

'There's one picture in there you'll recognise. Carry on looking.'

Intrigued, she obeyed, turning the pages more rapidly than before. Suddenly with an indrawn breath of surprise and puzzlement, she stopped. She hadn't expected to see a photograph of herself.

It had been taken at a party for socialites. She was wearing a figure-hugging dress of black crushed velvet and showing a lot of sun-tanned cleavage, having recently returned from a winter holiday in the Caribbean.

'what am I doing here' she demanded, baffled.


	3. Chapter 3

'You, I hope, are going to be my next major acquisition, Ms Granger.' For the first time a hint of amusement showed in the hard steel-grey eyes and flickered at the corners of his wide, chiseled mouth.

Inconsequential, it struck her that his mouth was at variance with the rest of his features. It was the month of sensualist in the face of a man who otherwise gave the impression of being supremely self-disciplined.

But it was the meaning of his extraordinary statement, rather than the contradiction between his mouth and his eyes that preoccupied her at the moment.

'What do you mean?' she said warily.

'I need a wife. You need financial support. Do you understand the word fortuitous?'

'Of course I do,' she retorted, her long-lashed green eyes sparking with annoyance at the implied aspersion on her intelligence.

She said, 'It means happening by chance… especially by a lucky chance. But I can't see anything lucky about my father dying of massive coronary in his middle fifties with his business on the rocks and his wife destitute,' she added coldly

Matching her coldness, he said, 'In my experience, most people make their own luck. Your father's lifestyle wasn't conducive to a long health life. As a business man, he took too many risks for a man with responsibilities.'

'Did you have dealing with him?'

She knew next to nothing about her father's business life. Since her late teens he had spent little time with his family. It was years since he and her mother had shared a bedroom. Hermione knew there had been other women.

'not directly. But after seeing that picture, I made a point of finding out more about you. I was on the point of making contact when your father died and I put the matter on hold. In the light of subsequent events, I've adapted my original plan to deal with things more expeditiously. If my information is correct, you have no relationship with men in train at the present time?'

'How did you find that out?'

he said coolly, 'I had you investigated… a reasonable precaution in the circumstances. Marriage is a very important contract. When people are buying a house, they have searches made by surveyors and lawyers. I had you checked out, very discreetly, by a private detective. You may want to run a similar check on me. For the time being my secretary has prepared a file which will give you most of the information you need.'

Retrieving the file she was holding, he placed another slimmer folder on the edge of the desk in front of her.

'I can't believe I'm hearing this. I though this was a merchant bank…not a marriage bureau.'

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the third chapter sorry about the chapters being so short! please enjoy


	4. Chapter 4

Hermione's eyes were both baffled and angry. He didn't look like a crazy person. in his expensive suit and diagonally striped silk tie- perhaps the emblem of one of those old boys' networks which still wielded so much influence-he looked eminently sane and sensible. But he must be out of his head to believe he could buy a wife as casually and easily as everything else in the file he was putting away in a drawer.

'It is a bank and i am its chairman,' he said calmly.

'you wouldn't be for much longer if your share-holders heard what you're suggesting. They'd think you were out of your mind. you can't _buy _a wife.'

'It isn't the usual method of acquiring one,' he agreed, going back to his chair. 'But these are unusual circumstances. i have neither the time nor inclination to follow the traditional course. you are in urgent need of someone to straighten out the financial shambles you find yourself in. if you agree to marry me, your mother won't have to move and you won't have to worry about her future. I'll take care of that. Think it over, Hermione. When you've had time to assess it, I think you'll agree it's an eminently sensible plan.'

for some reason his use of her detonated the anger which had been building inside her. Despite the red glint in her chestnut hair, it was rare for Hermione to lose control of her temper. but she did now.

Jumping up, she said fiercely. 'I don't need to think it over. nor would any sane person. I'm furious you've made me come here, thinking I'd hear something trip to London has been a complete waste of time.

I've a damned good mind to write to your board of directors and tell them they've got a nutcase in control.'

Without waiting for his reaction, she marched to the big double doors of solid mahogany and yanked one of them open. Glowering at the startled secretary at her desk in the outer sanctum she slammed it resoundingly behind her and returned to the private lift which had brought her up to this rarefied level of the building.

'Is everything all right, Mr Malfoy?'

His PA didn't know why he had sent for Hermione Granger, but she knew there could be no justification for the girl to emerge from his room scowling like one of the snake-haired furies in classical mythology.

A conservative fifty something who had been promoted to Pa while the late Sir Miles Kennard was chair-man. Miss Jones knew enough about Ms Granger to conclude she was thoroughly spoilt.

Perhaps Mr Malfoy had told her a few home truths. Although diplomacy was one of his many skills, when it was appropriate he could be outspoken, even was a much tougher man than Sir Miles Kennard. And needed to be. The world was a harsher place now than when she had joined the bank as a junior secretary almost thirty years ago.

'Everything's fine, Miss Jones, thank you.'

Although he was always formal, sometimes he gave her a smile which was far more rewarding than the casual use of her first name. That he should smile now surprised he. She had expected Ms Granger's ill mannered exit from his presence to leave him in one of his forbidding moods.

As his visibly baffled PA withdrew, it crossed Draco's mind that Barbara Jones and Hermione Granger were about as dissimilar as any two women with roughly the same background could be.

the only child of middle-aged parents, Miss Jones had spent her adult life caring for them in their old age. She was the most selfless, reliable, deserving person he knew. the only rewards she could expect were the satisfaction of duty well done and a modestly comfortable pension.

Hermione represented the opposite extreme. it seemed likely she had never performed an unselfish act in her life. Unfairly, she had all the assets his PA lacked: a beautiful face and figure, a vibrant personality and a high degree of self-confidence, party inborn and partly the result of an expensive elitest education.

Although Draco usually predict how most people would react to any given circumstance, not having mat Hermione since they had left school he hadn't been sure how she would respond to his the whole her spirited reaction had pleased him.

It showed that she was hot-tempered, impulsive and combative. At the same time it revealed that she wasn't a coward, willing to clutch at any straw to save herself from having to grapple with the gritty realities of switching from rich girl to poor girl.

From the moment she had entered the room, he had known that the shots in the social pages of the glossies hadn't given a false impression. In reality she was even more attractive than she looked in her photographs.

Although his main motive for marrying was not the customary one, it wasn't his plan to have the kind of relationship where physical pleasure was something found outside the marriage. the extra-marital liaisons engaged in by many of his peers were not on his own agenda. in his view there was no reason why a practical marriage shouldn't include good sex.

taming that pretty firebrand until she ate out of his hand was a challenge he hadn't foreseen but expected to enjoy.


	5. Chapter 5

Hermione returned to the flat that her father bought in case he couldn't make it back to they're house. She took a shower and change into more comfortable clothes. She had to sort out his belonging since her mother hates the city and never visits it. Hermione hate the flat not the décor (how could she when she designed it) but the purpose of the flat. Occasionally Hermione had toyed with the idea of taking a course in interior design and starting a business. But always something had happened to distract her. But Hermione had been more occupied by the idea of been Ron's wife.

Anyway she hated the flat because once, five years ago, Hermione had arrived in London unexpectedly and found him in bed with an unknown woman at four in the afternoon. She could still remember the horrified looks in their faces when, thinking the flat was empty and puzzled by the strange noises coming from her father's bed room, she had disturbed a scene deeply shocking to a seventeen year old virgin. Hermione was saving herself for Ron ever since they kissed in the Chamber of Secret. She knew he was the one. The day his mother had told her was engaged had been the worst day of her life. Two months ago, she had been a guest at Ron's wedding. She was on her way into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee when someone pressed the front door buzzer. Answering it, Hermione found a motorbike messenger outside. After signing for it she went upstairs. She closed the door and, walking back to the living room, pulled the tab that opened the bag and peered at the content, immediately recognising the file Draco Malfoy had said was a resume of his life. Aiming at the sofa, Hermione flung the package from her. After making herself a cup of coffee and to postpone dealing with the package, she spent the next hour going through her father's wardrobe.

She opened a bottle of Muscadet and filled a glass. Instead of taking it back up stairs, she couldn't resist her curiosity about the letter that Malfoy had sent with the file. There was still a lot to be done and she had already wasted half an hour reading the contents of the file. She decided to phone for a pizza and continue the job. Her supper (aka the pizza) arrived sooner than she expected when she opened the door, it wasn't a pizza delivery man who stood outside. It was Draco Malfoy.

Hermione's friendly expression froze into a mask of dislike.

'What do you want' she said curtly.

'I thought you might have calmed down a little now.'

'I haven't… and I'm busy.'

She started to shut the door but he put a foot across the threshold and the flat of his hand on the door to hold it open.

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Sorry it been so long since the last up date but I've been ill. Please forgive me! If you have questions leave a review and I will reply.


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